Serbia Facing Chauvinism Again

AWAKENING OF RATS

The latest moves of Vojislav Seselj aimed at stirring
up fear and hatred are the result of deep changes the
Socialist Party of Serbia is undergoing after the winter
protests. Having felt that the post-Dayton "peace-making"
orientation was undermining the very foundations of his power,
Milosevic has "freshened up" his party with the old cadre,
turning back to the original chauvinist principles which had
been his starting-point. Seselj was among the first to grasp
the significance of this "return to the past".

AIM Belgrade, 22 July, 1997

After ten years of Slobodan Milosevic's rule it was
hard to believe that it was still possible to shock the
Serbian public. Nevertheless, that is what Vojislav Seselj,
mayor of Zemun, leader of the Serb Radical Party and candidate
at the forthcoming presidential elections in Serbia, has
managed to do. After the event that occurred on Wednesday 16
July in the premises of Belgrade BK Television, the political
life in Serbia will never be the same.

On that day, BK Television had a show called
"Tete-a-Tete" on its program, one of the many from the
category of tv duels, and the misfortune to debate with Seselj
befell Belgrade lawyer Nikola Barovic. The immediate cause of
this duel was the case of Zemun family Barbalic, who having
returned from vacation, learnt that they had been deprived of
their apartment by a decision of the Zemun mayor, and that one
of Seselj's associates had already moved into it. The
explanation of municipal authorities was that family Barbalic,
being Zemun Croats, were not entitled to possess real estate
in FR Yugoslavia, as well as the obvious lie that the
apartment was not used for more than five years.

Nikola Barovic who had even before the war acquired
the reputation of an uncompromising fighter for human rights,
came to the studio armed with a valid court decision which
returned the apartment to the Barbalics; Seselj came with his
bodyguard and a heap of papers, allegedly found in the home of
family Barbalic, which implied that for generations the
Barbalics had been Ustashe, that Ante Pavelic in person had
colonized them in Zemun, and similar things. Seselj's promise
that he would see to it that the youngest Barbalic (four years
old) was expelled from kindergarten left an especially
revolting impression. As the program proceeded, Seselj
increasingly referred to "ad hominem" arguments: after he had
proclaimed Barovic himself an Ustashe, he insulted Barovic's
late father. At one moment, Barovic reached out for a glass of
water from the table and spilt the water on Seselj. Seselj
stopped talking, stiffened, and then said: "You cannot provoke
me in the studio, but you will pay dearly for this". After
that, the program was interrupted.

It was necessary to wait but for a few minutes for
Seselj's threats to be fulfilled. While Barovic was drinking
coffee in the office of the host of the program, Seselj
appeared at the door accompanied by his bodyguard who beat up
Barovic with a series of karate blows in the head. The last
words Barovic had heard before losing consciousness were the
following: "That should do it, now we can go", with which
Seselj called his gorilla back. Later that evening, physicians
established that the lawyer's nose was broken, that his
cheek-bone was broken in two spots, and that he had to undergo
a surgery because of internal haemorrhage.

The very next day, Seselj presented his version of the
event, without mentioning his bodyguard. "Barovic darted to
hit me, and I pushed him back. A banana peel happened to be on
the floor, he slid on it and flew down the stairs, and then
this was repeated five or six times", declared the leader of
the Radicals to bewildered journalists with a smile. Seselj's
deputy Tomislav Nikolic went a step further. "Crazy Barovic
was asking for trouble and he got what he deserved. He was not
beaten up by Seselj, but by people who had gathered in front
of the studio reacting to Barovic's Ustashe propaganda",
explained Nikolic.

More concern than the event itself was caused by the
reaction of the ruling parties, or rather, their failure to
react. State television did not report about it, nor did the
pro-regime press, although Barovic's swollen face appeared on
the front pages of all independent journals. At the Serbian
assembly session the next day, it turned out that there was
not a single prominent representative of the Socialist Party
of Serbia who believed that this event deserved their
attention. "That is pure nonsense. We are dealing with serious
things here", Dragan Tomic, the chairman of the assembly and
the acting president of Serbia until the new head of the state
is elected, said to the journalists. In the following few
days, majority of officials zealously pretended that they knew
nothing about it. BK Television itself (owned by Bogoljub
Karic) in the premises of which Nikola Barovic had been beaten
up, joined them in this attitude with its awkward statement in
which they stated that "both guests had broken the rules" and
that "guards could not have prevented the incident in any
way". Such reaction is being linked to the persistent attempts
of Bogoljub Karic to be restored to favour of Slobodan
Milosevic after his short excursion to the opposition.

The judiciary acted similarly: the public prosecutor
did not see fit to react in the line of duty, and decided
to wait for Barovic's private appeal; only five days later, he
unwillingly started an investigation, noting that "it was
still necessary to determine first whether (Barovic's)
injuries were minor or severe". There will be a problem to
provide witnesses: the editor of BK Television, Tanja
Jordovic, who was in the neighbouring office during the
incident, declared that she had seen nothing and had "no idea"
who had hit Barovic, and the host of the program
"Tete-a-Tete", young Igor Bozic, was urgently sent on summer
vacation. That is why it will be very difficult to establish
which of Seselj's bodyguards had beaten Barovic up.

However, Seselj and his bodyguard managed to do the
impossible: for a short while they succeeded in uniting the
quarrelling members of the Together coalition. Leaders of the
Democratic Party, the Serb Renewal Movement and the Civic
Alliance of Serbia condemned beating up of Barovic in almost
identical formulations and put the "Seselj case" on the agenda
of Belgrade assembly session. Five Belgrade humanitarian
organizations (Humanitarian Law Fund, Helsinki Committee,
Centre for Anti-war Action, Belgrade Circle, and Belgrade
Centre for Human Rights) demanded Seselj's expulsion from
political life and boycott of activities of his party by the
media.

Evidently encouraged by the benevolent attitude of the
authorities, Seselj and his associates announced new measures:
they accused the "anti-Serb lobby" in Belgrade (in which they
classify the mentioned humanitarian organizations, independent
media and majority of opposition parties) of conducting a
campaign against the president of the Serb Radical Party by
order of the Croatian intelligence service, and said that what
had happened to Barovic was an "educational and correctional
measure" and that similar "measures" would be broadly applied
in the future. This threat was just empty talk either:
according to information of the Helsinki Committee of Serbia,
in the night of the statement, about fifteen citizens of Zemun
of non-Serb nationality received threatening telephone calls
in which they were told that their names were on a list for
eviction and that they had to watch what they were doing if
they did not wish anything to happen to them. Is it necessary
to mention that, having come to the post of the mayor of
Zemun, Seselj has acquired the insight into the birth
register?

Despite everything, it is hardly probable that the
civic alternative in Serbia will have the strength to form a
united front against Seselj, for the same reasons due to which
during all these years they had not been able to establish a
united front against his main sponsor - Slobodan Milosevic,
who is at this moment moving to the head of the federal state.
Especially because Seselj's behavior is nothing new: it is all
deja vu from the time of the first great love affair of the
Socialists and the Radicals between 1991 and 1993. At
that time too, Seselj's men, with the discreet assistance of
the police, evicted people from their homes (in Hrtkovci),
while their boss waived his gun at the students in Belgrade
streets, beat up teachers who were on strike and assaulted his
political opponents. After his split with Milosevic in 1993,
Seselj withdrew for a while, and it was sufficient for the
so-called democratic opposition to forget everything he had
done and even start flirting with him. Just a month ago, Vuk
Draskovic and Bogoljub Karic were seen walking down by the
Danube hand in hand with Seselj, while their spokesmen were,
in undertones, announcing a coalition of the SPO, Karic and
the Radicals. Seselj has now brutally reminded them of his
true nature.

This "awakening of rats" could be expected. The latest
moves of Vojislav Seselj, aimed at stirring up fear and hatred
are the result of deep changes which the Socialist Party of
Serbia is undergoing after the winter protests. Having felt
that the post-Dayton "peace-making" orientation was
undermining the foundations of his power, Milosevic has
"freshened up" his party with old cadre, such as Milorad
Vucelic, turning back to his original chauvinist principles.
Seselj was among the first to grasp the significance of this
"return to the past".

There is, however, an essential difference: in
distinction from 1991 and 1992, there is no more "new
territories" across the Drina, awaiting "liberators". There is
a lot to do within the country: with participation of ethnic
minorities in its population of 40 per cent, Serbia is still
multiethnic, and Belgrade with its "low-quality Serbs" is
still "the greatest Ustashe city in the world" (Ostoja
Sibincic, commissar of the Serb Radical Party for Hrtkovci).
Thanks to the quarrels within the democratic opposition,
according to all polls, Seselj will emerge as the most
powerful political player after Milosevic. What has happened
to family Barbalic and to Barovic is evidently just the
beginning.

Nevertheless, a petition is being signed in Belgrade
streets for expulsion of Seselj from political life and
raising criminal charges against the leader of the Radicals
for stirring up hatred and advocating crime.